I wrote a short “Editor’s Choice” piece for Bomb Magazine recently about the FM3 Buddha Machine, and it’s in the Spring 2009 issue, which is out now. I don’t believe it’s online, so if you’re so inclined, you’ll need to hit up your friendly neighborhood newsstand or bookseller.

A few years back, I wrote a post about how I use the star rating system in iTunes to help manage how I listen to music. I recently acquired a new MacBook, and because I made a few mistakes in the process of transferring music from my external drive to the MacBook, I lost some metadata, and that metadata included the star ratings I had accumulated over the last 3 or 4 years.

Some Context

I thought this was going to be a bit of a problem, but it turns out the way I use music has changed a bit and the star system isn’t really as central to the way I do things anymore. I tend to think of ambient music these days as needing to be contextually relevant. And by contextually relevant I mean appropriate for the time of day, place, mood, weather, time of year, lighting, temperature, and whatever other circumstances all combine to make up the conditions present when I’m listening to music.

iTunes doesn’t have a particularly good way to handle this. I use a lot of Smart playlists to approximate some of the functionality I’m after, but there isn’t quite enough options to slice things the way I’d like. What I’m looking for is a way to mix quantitative behavior patters with things like my qualitative feelings on things. Here’s an example:

I get up early in the morning, and around this time of year it’s dark and the apartment is cold. It’s also quiet because the hum of the air conditioner in the background isn’t present. I’d like music appropriate for this context.

Using Notes

One way I do this is by using the notes field. I essentially use the space to “tag” tracks. A lot of the tags I use are descriptive in terms of what type of ambient music I’m listening to: drone, instrumental, etc. and then I’ll add a few more words that describe the sound like “clicks” or “spacey” or “underwater.”

And so I’ve also used the field to add in contextual information by using keywords like “morning” or “quiet” or “winter” or “autumn” and etc. And this works mostly well, except that the metadata isn’t structured, and therefore hard to remember and be consistent about. There’s a tradeoff between not being forced to use the exact right term and losing out on tracks I’ve labelled as “soft” when I make a playlist of “quiet” tracks.

Smart-er Playlists

So I’d like there to be a better system for structured metadata. Basically a “Genre” field that’s totally suped up.

But what I’d really like to do is then take these smart playlists based on a combination of keywords and then have the system be smart enough to only play tracks noted as “quiet” and “morning” and “winter” that I’ve actually in the past listened to between 5am and 7am during the months of December, January, and February.

So what?

What I’m attempting to do with Ambient Music Blog Podcast is to do this work for you. I think of a context, and then I pick some tracks that to me feel like they fit. My longterm goal is to explore the ways in which the kind of music I talk about on this web site might be useful for improving experiences in the physical world. Like, for example, would it be easier to buy a car if the salesman’s office was playing a really well-done and contextually appropriate playlist?

In the meantime, I’m hacking away at iTunes and trying to make it do something closer to what I’d like it to do.

For those of you who use iTunes, you can now find the Ambient Music Blog Podcast in the iTunes Music Store. Thanks for all the positive feedback, we’re currently working on another edition that should go out sometime next week.

The second year of Ambient Music Blog has come to a close and I’d like to thank those of you who have stopped by in that time, wherever you might be.

Personally, I’m thinking about ways to make 2009 the year where the things I do on the web are more for me than they are for other people. I’m not exactly sure just how I’m going to do that yet, or if I’ll be successful, but I plan on Ambient Music Blog being a big part of it.

Thanks again, and good luck.

You can now follow Ambient Music Blog on Twitter. For now we’re using it as simply another way to let people know there’s new content on the site (like we do with RSS and email). We’ll see how it evolves (or doesn’t) over time. Let’s be big Twitter friends!

Well, I’ve had some turkey and all that goes with it, and I’ve settled in here with a nice drink. For those of you that celebrate these things, Merry Christmas, and thanks for reading. And to everyone else, have a really nice Thursday evening.

I also get a fair amount of submissions from artists from all over the world. This, too, is great.

I find it difficult to articulate the particular kind of music I’m interested in here. I also find it not particularly interesting to think and write about how music sounds. And so I’d rather you just have a listen and see if you think something is worth a download or purchase.

That said, I can definitely tell you maybe what kind of stuff I’m not interested in, because I get a number of submissions that are pretty wide of the mark. Here’s maybe a checklist:

New-age
Mystical
Electro
Nature-sounds
Relaxing
Sleep music

Anything with vocals, of almost any type, of which I make an exception for a band or two from Iceland, and only because their music is so goddamn good looking.

Things that sound like they came from outer space.

Chillout music

Anything you might hear at a rave.

I don’t want to discourage submissions, but I thought it would be worth all of our time if I tried to talk about the kind of stuff I’m likely to post here, and the only way I can do that is by talking about the stuff I won’t be posting here.

Maybe I’ve missed a few things? If you’ve got any ideas on expanding the above list, please do drop a note in the comments.

1. I’ve begun pointing to Amazon.com MP3 downloads rather than eMusic.com. The selection is much deeper now than it was when the service debuted. And you don’t need to be a subscriber to grab a track or a full record. Seems more useful for more people. Also, if you end up downloading anything, a few pennies get kicked over to Ambient Music Blog.

2. Speaking of pennies, I’m experimenting with some ads on the site. So far they’ve been nothing to write home about, and I’m leaning towards maybe removing them at some point. But I’m giving them a go after being kind of opposed to the idea in principle for so long.

3. I’ve taken to just posting a record cover and a link to a place where you can hear the tracks. I’m not much interested in talking about these records. My hope is that you can trust that after a few years of doing this site, if I post a link to something, it’s probably worth your time to have a listen. No sense in me getting in the way of that by trying to write clever things about how the record sounds. Just go listen yourself.

That’s it. Lots of posts in the queue, thanks for reading, and I hope you find something worth listening to.

Hello. Took a little summer break from the site. I did a little traveling, watched the European Championship, started learning how to play the guitar, bought a car to get away from New York City on the weekends. For now, back to the music.

Here’s a few odds and ends that came to my attention while I was away.

Planet Autostar
This is apparently “Planet Geek House.” I’m not sure what that means, but a think a few of you might find the streaming tracks available here of interest.

crystalpalace
“Chilled electronica from electroset mixologist crystalpalace.” I’m not generally one who finds “electronica” to be interesting, but some of the streaming tracks available here are pretty good quality stuff. I assume there’s no connection to the famous London football club.

More soon.

Looking at the numbers, the site has had visitors from over 80 different countries in 2007. I kind of like that.

And while I’d much rather write about music here than write about writing, it has been a bit quiet on the site lately, and I should tell you that while the reasons are many (finishing up a graduate program, a bit of travel, starting a new job, etc.), I’d like to thank you for your patience and let you know that I intend to pick up the pace here in early 2008.

So, here’s to a good new year, and thanks again for reading.